Turkey’s solar market has started ‘teething’

With a government targeting 27.5 GW of non-hydro power renewables capacity by 2023 and rapidly growing energy consumption, Turkey is currently considered a hot market for renewable energy investors.

Turkey has started considering its own sources to generate electricity as a way to make it less dependent on fossil fuels, which account for 90 percent of the country’s current energy supply.

Solar energy is cost competitive, efficient and reliable enough to add considerable value to the country’s power generation portfolio.

Located in the Mediterranean sun belt, the country offers perfect natural conditions for solar power plants. The average sunlight time is very high—2640 hours per year (a total of 7.2 hours paer day), which represents an average amount of energy harnessed of 1500 kw h/m2. These favourable conditions have led foreign companies to invest in Turkey.

Solar energy sources are covered by Turkish Energy Market Legislation, which decrees that facilities which generate electricity from renewable energy sources will be granted a renewable energy resources certificate (RER Certificate) which will entitle such facilities to benefit from the incentives provided by the Law.

Systems producing up to 1-megawatt (MW) of energy do not need a license, and plugged into the national grid are eligible for payments of US$0.133 per kilowatt-hour for 10 years.